Rob Schmitz

From 2010 to 2016, Schmitz was the China Correspondent for the public radio business program Marketplace. Schmitz has won several awards for his reporting on China, including two national Edward R. Murrow awards and an Education Writers Association award. His work was also a finalist for the 2012 Investigative Reporters and Editors Award. His reporting in Japan — from the hardest-hit areas near the failing Fukushima nuclear power plant following the earthquake and tsunami — was included in the publication 100 Great Stories, celebrating the centennial of Columbia University's Journalism School. In 2012, Rob exposed the fabrications in Mike Daisey's account of Apple's supply chain on This American Life. His report was featured in the show's "Retraction" episode, the most downloaded episode in the program's 16-year history.

Prior to his radio career, Schmitz lived and worked in China – first as a teacher for the Peace Corps in the 1990s, later as a freelance print and video journalist. He speaks Mandarin and Spanish. He has a Master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.

Schmitz's latest book is Street of Eternal Happiness: Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road (2016).

To another story now - the arrest of a man accused of bribing African leaders is shedding a rare light onto how China's government and its companies operate abroad. Here's Rob Schmitz of NPR's Planet Money podcast.

OK, the Me Too movement has spotlighted sexual harassment in the workplace, but what about discrimination before you get the job? A new report finds that China's top employers routinely publish sexist ads. NPR's Rob Schmitz reports.

The one that marketing assistant Katherine Xue is gazing into, in the company's showroom, broadcasts an image of my face with white lines emanating from my eyes, nose and corners of my mouth. It estimates I am a 37-year-old male (I'm 44) with an attractiveness score of 98.

Facial recognition technology is becoming more common here in the U.S. as anyone who uses Facebook or an iPhone 10 knows. But it's far more widespread in China. We take a look in this week's All Tech Considered.

"Trade wars are good, and easy to win," President Trump tweeted earlier this month after announcing heavy tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

The president's claim will soon be tested after he unleashes a raft of tariffs on about $50 billion worth of Chinese exports to the United States in retaliation for China's theft of U.S. technology and trade secrets.

It was March 2007, China's legislature was wrapping up its annual session and Premier Wen Jiabao was about to speak at the closing press conference. The economy was seeing double-digit growth, a consumer class was rising and Beijing was soon hosting its first Olympics — there was every reason for a savvy politician to boast.

But that's not what the Chinese premier did.

"There are structural problems," Wen said ominously into a microphone, "which are causing unsteady, unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable development."

In what will go down as one of the most significant legislative sessions in modern Chinese history, an eye-rolling millennial managed to steal the show from President Xi Jinping, a man who had just been given permission to rule 1.3 billion people for as long as he wants.

It's early afternoon, and the roosters of Three Stones Village are clucking themselves into a frenzy. They're responding to the antics of farmer Liu Jin Yin, who darts this way and that between bamboo groves, rice paddies and livestock, carrying a tripod that holds his iPhone.

The barefoot 26-year-old climbs a tree and descends with a handful of flowers. He leans into his phone to explain.

The last time China pressured Hong Kong to scrap its curriculum in favor of one developed by China's Communist Party-led government, tens of thousands marched through the city chanting, "Down with national education!"

Thundering chants of "We are Hong Kong" from thousands of red-shirted fans reverberate through the city's stadium, tucked into the lush mountains and jagged skyscrapers of Hong Kong Island. Hong Kong's soccer team is playing against Lebanon, and the cheers die down for the opening stanza of the Lebanese national anthem.

The polite applause for the opposing team takes a turn, though, when the national anthem of China – technically Hong Kong's anthem, too – begins.

A U.S. Navy transporter plane carrying 11 people crashed into the Pacific Ocean off Japan. Eight survivors have been rescued, and the search for the other three is ongoing. NPR's Rob Schmitz joins us from Shanghai with more on this. Hi, Rob.